Leading technology group, IBM has unveiled its annual “IBM 5 in 5” (#ibm5in5), a list of ground-breaking scientific innovations with the potential to change the way people work, live, and interact during the next five years.
According to the group, these include AI, our words will open a window into our mental health; Hyper-imaging and AI will give us superhero vision; Macroscopes will help us understand Earth’s complexity in infinite detail; Medical labs “on a chip” will serve as health detectives for tracing disease at the nanoscale; Smart sensors will detect environmental pollution at the speed of light.
It would be recalled that in 1609, Galileo invented the telescope and saw our cosmos in an entirely new way. He proved the theory that Earth and other planets in our solar system revolve around the Sun, which until then was impossible to observe.
IBM Research continues this work through the pursuit of new scientific instruments – whether physical devices or advanced software tools – designed to make what’s invisible in our world visible, from the macroscopic level down to the nanoscale.
Dario Gil, vice president of science & solutions at IBM Research said “The scientific community has a wonderful tradition of creating instruments to help us see the world in entirely new ways. For example, the microscope helped us see objects too small for the naked eye and the thermometer helped us understand temperature of the Earth and human body.”
“With advances in artificial intelligence and nanotechnology, we aim to invent a new generation of scientific instruments that will make the complex invisible systems in our world today visible over the next five years.
Innovation in this area could enable us to dramatically improve farming, enhance energy efficiency, spot harmful pollution before it’s too late, and prevent premature physical and mental health decline as examples. IBM’s global team of scientists and researchers is steadily bringing these inventions from the realm of our labs to the real world.
The IBM 5 in 5 is based on market and societal trends as well as emerging technologies from IBM’s Research labs around the world that can make these transformations possible.
